Columbus schools consider changes on building oversight

Wednesday

Sep 4, 2013 at 12:01 AMSep 4, 2013 at 10:07 AM

The Columbus school board began revamping the citizens panel that oversees spending for the district's school-building project last night, with a plan to give it input into which buildings will be renovated, closed, leased or sold. The changes are being made to conform to promises made by a millage committee that developed the 9.01-mill levy request on the November ballot.

Bill Bush, The Columbus Dispatch

The Columbus school board began revamping the citizens panel that oversees spending for the district’s school-building project last night, with a plan to give it input into which buildings will be renovated, closed, leased or sold.

The changes are being made to conform to promises made by a millage committee that developed the 9.01-mill levy request on the November ballot. The millage committee also recommended expanding the membership and duties of the district’s Neighborhood School Development Partnership, a citizens panel formed to oversee the spending of bond money as part of the district’s school-rebuilding project.

“The role of the NSDP will include the review of district facilities, both academic and administrative, as part of a more-comprehensive approach to the management of the district’s real-estate portfolio,” a draft of the panel’s new charter said.

How many members eventually will be on the oversight panel wasn’t discussed by the school board last night. Currently, it has nine voting and six nonvoting members.

In addition to overseeing bond money on new building projects, the partnership would make recommendations to the board on what to do with unused capital funds that result from selling district properties as enrollment shrinks. It also would make recommendations for the purchase, sale or leasing of district property, in effect taking that responsibility from the superintendent, who, under the new plan, would make recommendations to the partnership.

The school board still could accept or disregard any recommendations.

“We’re balancing a lot of things,” said Carole Olshavsky, the district’s head of facilities. “We have a need for school space, and we have buildings that we don’t need short-term but maybe need long-term.”

In the past, some members of the school board and public have questioned the way the committee has made major real-estate transactions.

“We saw this as a way to put another step in the process” before it gets to the school board, Olshavsky said.

The board did not vote on the partnership’s new charter last night. Some members indicated that they might propose changes.

bbush@dispatch.com

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